The De-Hitlerization of Your Brain

The election is over and Trump supporters are trying to mind their own business, as usual. Meanwhile, Clinton’s supporters are on the streets to protest people who act the way they are acting. How did things get this crazy?

Well, most of it has to do with Clinton’s persuasion experts and supporters framing Trump and his supporters as the next coming of Hitler. Here’s a fresh example.

With this kind of messaging you should not be surprised to see crowds attacking Trump supporters. The attackers feel they have the moral authority to do so. Here’s a fresh example where a group of Clinton supporters repeatedly beat an older Trump supporter on camera. The scary part is that they appear to be proud of it, as though it is morally justified.

My observation of the anti-Trump protests is that it mostly involves young people. This is their first fake-Hitler scare. They don’t realize that Reagan was compared to Hitler, both Bush presidents were compared to Hitler, and Romney was compared to Hitler. I assume lots of European and other leaders have also been compared to Hitler. You might want to point that out to any young person who thinks this is the first time we’ve seen this.

I’ll also work on a de-hypnosis system. This one isn’t easy because fear is the top form of persuasion and you can’t out-fear a Hitler fear. If I were president I would try to break the spell by doing something so out-of-the-box that observers can’t hold this new information in their head and still hold the Hitler frame. For example…

Imagine Trump proposing reparations for slavery. That’s as out-of-box as you can get. And imagine that reparations take the form of a special tax on the top 1% of the wealthy to fund free college for any African-American students (including adults returning for trade school or college) for the next 25 years.

I’m in the top 1%, but I wouldn’t mind a tax that had such a positive long-term impact on the country. It seems like I would get my money back from that sort of investment.

I think you could only pass this sort of law if you wrapped it into a plan to give everyone some sort of student loan relief or free college in the future. But some group has to go first in any plan.

You can argue about whether this is a good plan or a bad one. I can see both sides. But in the context of persuasion, it would go a long way toward breaking the hypnosis spell that imagines Trump is the next Hitler. You can’t be Hitler and also in favor of reparations for slavery. People won’t be able to hold the two competing thoughts in their head, and they will default to the one that is in the headlines.

In the meantime, if you are trying to dehypnotize a frightened friend who fears a Trump presidency, remind them that every Republican leader has been compared to Hitler. Also remind them that Hitler didn’t have social media to keep him in check. Today we know what happens on every street corner everywhere. (Case in point, the video I linked above.) The public is watching. Everything.

And I can promise any Clinton supporter that if the government ever shut down social media, Trump supporters would be on the street with you. And probably in front of you.

For now, Trump supporters are playing it smart and staying semi-hidden. That’s the right play. Let’s see if tensions subside on their own. So far the demonstrations have been peaceful.